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My two cents

I cannot sleep. This isn't very usual. I'm a night owl, especially this week since I haven't had to work. But tonight is different. My mind is preoccupied with so much stuff. Let me start from the beginning.

This morning, I woke up around 10:30. I didn't want to get up quite yet because I had nothing to do, so I laid in bed drifting in and out of sleep. Around 11, I decided to check Twitter. As I scrolled through my newsfeed, I saw so many tweets about Colorado and asking for prayer and such. I had no idea what happened,so I googled it. The fact that I can gain access to basically anything in a matter of seconds still astounds me. But what google pulled up astounded me even more. If you're reading this, I am assuming you know what I'm talking about. A gunman goes into the midnight premire of the new Batman movie and opens fire killing at least 12 and injurying 50 others (I'm pretty sure that's right). I felt sad and lift of a prayer for the victims and people involved and go back to twitter to see what else is happening.

But I couldn't shake this. All day, I thought about the shooting and couldn't get this shooting off of my mind. Not in some creepy, cynical way, but it left me really wondering and realizing how short life is. That could've happened anywhere to anyone. None of us are really safe. We try and protect our children and tell them to look both ways before crossing the street and not to talk to strangers, but who would've guessed going to a movie would've ended someone's life. I think of all the victims; they were someone's mom, dad, brother, sister, daughter, son, friend..the list goes on. I think of what they last said to someone they loved. Were they in a fight with a loved one? Who was the last person they told "I love you" to? Did they have any regrets or need to make any amends? It woke me up. It made me realize that you do not know when you are going to die. Of course, I know that. But it just hit so close to home for me.

This event has also made me angry, maybe angry isn't the right word, frustrated. This event has made me frustrated. I was listening to the radio today and the song "That's why I Pray" by Big and Rich came on, but they added news clips from the shooting in different parts of the song. It saddens me that our country takes God out of schools and takes offense to so many Christian things, but yet when a tragedy takes place, God can be there. We can pray to Him when things go bad, but every other day, He's shunned. I just don't think that's very fair. I'm not trying to say that I'm this perfect Christian, but God wants us all the time. During the bad and during the good. And while God hears all prayers, He wants to be there in every life event. We can't just call upon Him when it's convenient for us. How would you feel if your friend only talked to you to complain about the bad in life and yell at you when something goes wrong? It just doesn't make much sense.

And while this is the biggest massacre in US history and we can ache and pray for the victims who were at the movie theatre. We cannot forget the young man who did the horrible deed. It's not fair and it's not okay that he did something this horrific. But obviously he had something wrong with him. I don't think it's possible for a sane person to wake up one morning and decide he's going to shoot a ton of random people. We must remember his family too. They are going to be losing a son, brother, and friend as well.

I've learned that in any situation, anger doesn't do anything productive. We can't bring back lives that have been lost. While we can sit and simmer in our anger of how corrupt and horrible of a country we live in, what good will that do us? How will we grow or prosper? Just take a minute and thank God you are alive. He woke up this morning for a reason and what you do is up to you. But I challenge you to do something good for society. Prove to someone that not everyone is bad and there are actually people in this world that still care about little things.

This evening as I checked Twitter, I saw those I'm following were tweeting about the next big problem..one of the big, snazzy South Charlotte's mall's roof caved in, flooding parts of the mall. It's funny how quickly things change and we can forget what happen 24 hours ago. I guess that's just the society we live in. But I urge you, not to dwell on the Colorado shooting, but to thank God for your life and ask him to use you in your every day life.

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